Women's Portraits

Daina Bačianskienė

Daina Bačianskienė is 79 years old. She lives alone at the same village, at the same small wooden house she lived in her childhood. Daina was a teacher at an elementary school in Vilkija, now she is retired and is interested in studying herbs and collecting them from the fields and forests. Even she has a son and three grandchildren, sometimes she feels sad, especially in autumn and winter. Her lifestyle is modest, even her life conditions are poor, she looks to the future optimistic.

Daina was born in 1932, Lithuania, Kaunas district, Riogliškių village. She lives alone in the farmstead, surrounded by the beautiful nature. Here she has ten acres of land, inherited from her dad. She remembers that during the war it was dangerous to stay at home, all family went to the woods, dug the cave and lived in it. Daina remembers, it was so scary and difficult at that time. After the war, it was a shortage of teachers, so Daina finished the pedagogical studies and started to teach in an elementary school at Vilkija. She was married at twenty-seven, has a son.

Now, many years after retirement, Daina still lives in her native home - Riogliškių village near the river Nemunas. Her husband and parents died long ago. Daina’s friend advices to sell the part of it and to buy a better flat for living, the problem is that the house is old, sometimes it is imposable to open the door because of the deep snow during the cold winters, the water freezes up in the well.

“But I can’t imagine myself not in my native house, -says Daina, - which has now over one hundred years. Sometimes it is hard and sad, particularly in the late autumn and winter, but this time passes of...”         

She has nice neighbors who help her. “I do not have an internet, don’t think I need it, just enough the TV, I subscribe my favorite newspaper for ladies, which the postman brings it to me once a week,” - says Daina.

Now she is busy by collecting a variety of herbs, looking for books about herbs and reading about healing properties of them. As many Lithuanians Daina is going to the forest for mushrooms and berries every summer and autumn. By the way, one of her granddaughters also berries the blueberries in the forest, a lot of them one can find here, she sells them and earns some money for her needs.

She loves her current life - quiet and calm. Now Daina has time for her hobbies, do not hurry anywhere, Daina says, that she doesn’t need earn money as she gets the small pension, and it’s enough, one doesn’t need much living in the rural area, she can enjoy nature, read what she likes, collect herbs, communicate with relatives, friends and neighbors.

Daina wishes the young women to find out what do they want the most to be happy - work, family or anything else, and search for the happiness. “Don’t be depressed when hardship overtakes, because all that passes away...,” - advises this 79 years old lady.

Enrika Striogaitė